AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/17 - 7/23

AEW Collision 7/22/23

CM Punk/Darby Allin vs Ricky Starks/Christian

MD: This was very down to earth and very conventional, albeit with some unique partners and a certainly unique crowd. I came in to the first Collision thinking they needed to run some big angle from the start, and maybe, if they wanted to keep every single eye that fell upon the show, they did, but that's not what they went with and it's obviously not what they're doing. They're looking a slow, steady, consistent pro wrestling television and that means long, disciplined, measured TV matches of high quality like this. You can draw a throughline from the booking overall to the layout of this match. 

For one, all four wrestlers were completely engaged, completely committed, selling every emotional beat 100%. That might be the early bits with neither Starks nor Christian wanting to get it. It might be Starks on the apron watching Christian go for the diving headbutt and deciding to do the "look out to the crowd" visor pose of Christian's. It might be Punk making mental mistakes by chasing Starks after he committed slight transgressions at various points, or even Christian looking at Starks across the ring to get him to commit one of those transgressions. That meant for clever and elaborate transitions. It allowed for a strong double heat after a long and entertaining shine. Starks wrestled big. Darby made everything look better and more impactful. Christian's every movement was absolutely precise. Punk was a star, drawing heat and adulation and getting the fans all the more behind Darby.

This was comfort food at a high level. I try to watch things with an open mind, but if you've seen enough tag matches, especially ones that play within the line to try to make the most of the modality's conventions and norms, certain timings just feel right. They nailed it at almost every point here. Exactly when I felt some sort of inner need for Punk to loop in a hope spot, he did. Darby's offense is set up for big comebacks but that also makes him a great hot tag. He got in a few of his bombs and then immediately transitioned things back to heat by bouncing off of Luchasaurus. 

Everything was built up. Everything was paid off. Everything mattered. It was the complete opposite of the sort of matches we often get on Dynamite where babyfaces will break the rules of the match in the name of spots (where the spots are the ends and not the means) or where things break down a third the way through the match and then never come back. This was far more grounded, takes a different sort of patience and investment, but has a greater payoff. So long as you have crowds reacting to Punk and Punk reacting to crowds (and to a degree the emotional beats that FTR are good at setting up and laying down), there's a real chance that fans can be conditioned to expect something more than pure candy, imaginative visuals and set pieces, and emotional payoffs that are welcomed but not really earned from tag matches once again.